New Details on Funding for Park51

Eight investors contributed to the $4.8 million purchase of a former Burlington Coat Factory store north of Ground Zero, now the site of a controversial proposed mosque and Islamic community center, developers confirmed Friday.

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The former Burlington Coat Factory building, now the site of a proposed Islamic center and mosque.

The eight investors include Hisham Elzanaty, an Egyptian-born Long Island resident who donated $6,000 to the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development in 1999, a group shut down by federal authorities two years later for donating to Hamas.

Elzanaty gave restricted money to the group for orphans, unaware of its links to Hamas, according to Park51, the group behind the proposed 13-story center in downtown Manhattan.

“Hisham is a major investor in the Park51 project,” said the project’s developer, Sharif El-Gamal, in a statement. “He is one of eight investors, all of whom agree with me that this project will not be funded in any way from any country, terrorist organization or entity hostile to America or its values.”

El-Gamal and Elzanaty are the only Muslims among the group of eight investors, according to a source familiar with situation. El-Gamal has declined to release the names of the other investors; Elzanaty’s involvement in the project was first reported by WNYW, a Fox affiliate in New York City.

Reached by phone Friday, Elzanaty said, “This whole project is really… I’m very tired emotionally and physically from all of this and I’m very concerned about my family because of this. I’d like to spend my weekend quietly and to be able to answer any questions.”

Critics of the project, including some elected officials, have raised questions about the money behind it. Rep. Rick Lazio, a Republican candidate for governor of New York, has called for the state attorney general’s office to examine its funding. Attorney general Andrew Cuomo, also a candidate for governor, has declined to do so.

Park15 Park51 recently registered with the AG office’s charities bureau, enabling it to raise the estimated $100 million it will cost to build and run.

El-Gamal has been soliciting pledges at Friday prayer services for the past two weeks. He secured $10,000 in pledges from congregants after prayers this Friday along with another $10,000 last week.

“We are under a crisis right now,” he told the assembled worshipers Friday afternoon. “You’re reading about it every single day. And this is for you and your family and…children. And it’s only going to happen brick by brick, dollar by dollar.”